Portland Public Schools is replacing more than 40,000 Chromebooks and moving its K-8 classrooms to charging carts. The plan aims for zero downtime. Battery life during the school day is the part a cart cannot reach.
"Zero instructional downtime for students."
Portland Public Schools, Device Replacements and Refreshes, 2025 Bond
Portland Public Schools is using its 2025 bond to refresh its student devices. The district's plan, piloted this spring and rolled out for the 2026-27 school year, is a clear example of how a large district is rethinking 1:1:
- More than 40,000 Chromebooks replaced across the district.
- Carts for K-8. About 600 charging carts go into elementary and middle school classrooms.
- Take-home for high school. Every high school student gets a Chromebook for school and home.
- Swap, don't wait. A broken device is replaced on the spot from a spare pool of about 2% of each school's devices.
It is a sensible plan. Carts keep shared devices stored, counted and charged overnight, and the spare pool means a broken Chromebook no longer costs a student a week.
The battery runs out at school, not at night
A cart answers one question well: where do devices charge overnight? It does not answer what happens at 11 a.m., when a Chromebook taken out full at 8 is on its last few percent. The cart is across the room, and the outlet that could help is behind a bookshelf.
Take-home devices meet the same problem from the other side. A Chromebook that went home on Monday comes back on Tuesday with whatever charge the evening left it.
Portland's spare pool already shows the better logic: when a device fails, swap it and keep the student working. The same idea works for power.
Swap the battery, not the device
Portable power lets a classroom fix a low battery the way Portland fixes a broken device:
- Power goes to the student. A student takes an Omni Locker 10E unit from the station and plugs in at their own desk with its built-in USB-C cable. The device stays in the lesson.
- One outlet serves the room. The Omni Locker Station 10E holds six units and recharges them from a single wall outlet, so it works in older classrooms without new wiring.
- It works next to carts. Carts keep handling overnight charging and storage. The station covers the school day.
Districts have made the device universal. The next step is keeping it charged through the last period. See how St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School and other schools set it up in our case studies.
An industry perspective, not a partnership
This article is Omnicharge's commentary on published industry material. Omnicharge is not affiliated with, partnered with or endorsed by Portland Public Schools.
Quoted excerpts remain the property of their authors and are used with attribution. Photos on this page are Omnicharge's own.
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